1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to a novel system for exterminating insects in a building. More specifically, this invention involves a centralized fumigation system which is built into a building, and which may provide controlled fumigation of the building at programmed intervals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
All over the world, insects are undesirable inhabitants in homes, commercial buildings, and industrial buildings for many obvious reasons. As a result, many systems have been suggested to rid these buildings of these insects. In Florida, where the climate is both warm and humid, insects invade the buildings, even when all of the outside walls and foundations are made of concrete and are sealed on the outside surfaces.
Some contemporary methods of exterminating infestations of insects in homes and places of business include spraying the perimeters of the rooms and buildings with insecticide, and/or fogging the rooms and even the entire buildings with insecticide. Such methods are temporary, are only partially successful and involve a great waste of time, money and chemicals.
It is a fact that cockroaches, silver fish, palmetto bugs, etc., live and multiply in the walls of the buildings. Spraying the baseboards and the perimeters of the rooms and/or fogging entire rooms only reaches a small part of the insect population. Insects simply return into their nests in and between the interior and exterior walls of the buildings, deep in the structure of the buildings, where they are protected from such insecticide treatment and continue to live and multiply.
Other contemporary methods attempt to prevent invasions by insects by applying liquid insecticide to the foundation below the grade through the hollows in the concrete block foundation wall, as described for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,915,848 to James H. Giffin and U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,586 to G. P. Meyer, et al. Such methods are only partially successful in providing a barrier to the invasion of insects, but do little toward eradicating nests of insects in the walls where the insects live and multiply.